Читать книгу On the Nature of Things - Тит Лукреций Кар - Страница 7

     Now learn of what remains! More keenly hear!

     And for myself, my mind is not deceived

     How dark it is: But the large hope of praise

     Hath strook with pointed thyrsus through my heart;

     On the same hour hath strook into my breast

     Sweet love of the Muses, wherewith now instinct,

     I wander afield, thriving in sturdy thought,

     Through unpathed haunts of the Pierides,

     Trodden by step of none before. I joy

     To come on undefiled fountains there,

     To drain them deep; I joy to pluck new flowers,

     To seek for this my head a signal crown

     From regions where the Muses never yet

     Have garlanded the temples of a man:

     First, since I teach concerning mighty things,

     And go right on to loose from round the mind

     The tightened coils of dread religion;

     Next, since, concerning themes so dark, I frame

     Songs so pellucid, touching all throughout

     Even with the Muses' charm—which, as 'twould seem,

     Is not without a reasonable ground:

     But as physicians, when they seek to give

     Young boys the nauseous wormwood, first do touch

     The brim around the cup with the sweet juice

     And yellow of the honey, in order that

     The thoughtless age of boyhood be cajoled

     As far as the lips, and meanwhile swallow down

     The wormwood's bitter draught, and, though befooled,

     Be yet not merely duped, but rather thus

     Grow strong again with recreated health:

     So now I too (since this my doctrine seems

     In general somewhat woeful unto those

     Who've had it not in hand, and since the crowd

     Starts back from it in horror) have desired

     To expound our doctrine unto thee in song

     Soft-speaking and Pierian, and, as 'twere,

     To touch it with sweet honey of the Muse—

     If by such method haply I might hold

     The mind of thee upon these lines of ours,

     Till thou see through the nature of all things,

     And how exists the interwoven frame.

     But since I've taught that bodies of matter, made

     Completely solid, hither and thither fly

     Forevermore unconquered through all time,

     Now come, and whether to the sum of them

     There be a limit or be none, for thee

     Let us unfold; likewise what has been found

     To be the wide inane, or room, or space

     Wherein all things soever do go on,

     Let us examine if it finite be

     All and entire, or reach unmeasured round

     And downward an illimitable profound.

     Thus, then, the All that is is limited

     In no one region of its onward paths,

     For then 'tmust have forever its beyond.

     And a beyond 'tis seen can never be

     For aught, unless still further on there be

     A somewhat somewhere that may bound the same—

     So that the thing be seen still on to where

     The nature of sensation of that thing

     Can follow it no longer. Now because

     Confess we must there's naught beside the sum,

     There's no beyond, and so it lacks all end.

     It matters nothing where thou post thyself,

     In whatsoever regions of the same;

     Even any place a man has set him down

     Still leaves about him the unbounded all

     Outward in all directions; or, supposing

     A moment the all of space finite to be,

     If some one farthest traveller runs forth

     Unto the extreme coasts and throws ahead

     A flying spear, is't then thy wish to think

     It goes, hurled off amain, to where 'twas sent

     And shoots afar, or that some object there

     Can thwart and stop it? For the one or other

     Thou must admit and take. Either of which

     Shuts off escape for thee, and does compel

     That thou concede the all spreads everywhere,

     Owning no confines. Since whether there be

     Aught that may block and check it so it comes

     Not where 'twas sent, nor lodges in its goal,

     Or whether borne along, in either view

     'Thas started not from any end. And so

     I'll follow on, and whereso'er thou set

     The extreme coasts, I'll query, "what becomes

     Thereafter of thy spear?" 'Twill come to pass

     That nowhere can a world's-end be, and that

     The chance for further flight prolongs forever

     The flight itself. Besides, were all the space

     Of the totality and sum shut in

     With fixed coasts, and bounded everywhere,

     Then would the abundance of world's matter flow

     Together by solid weight from everywhere

     Still downward to the bottom of the world,

     Nor aught could happen under cope of sky,

     Nor could there be a sky at all or sun—

     Indeed, where matter all one heap would lie,

     By having settled during infinite time.

     But in reality, repose is given

     Unto no bodies 'mongst the elements,

     Because there is no bottom whereunto

     They might, as 'twere, together flow, and where

     They might take up their undisturbed abodes.

     In endless motion everything goes on

     Forevermore; out of all regions, even

     Out of the pit below, from forth the vast,

     Are hurtled bodies evermore supplied.

     The nature of room, the space of the abyss

     Is such that even the flashing thunderbolts

     Can neither speed upon their courses through,

     Gliding across eternal tracts of time,

     Nor, further, bring to pass, as on they run,

     That they may bate their journeying one whit:

     Such huge abundance spreads for things around—

     Room off to every quarter, without end.

     Lastly, before our very eyes is seen

     Thing to bound thing: air hedges hill from hill,

     And mountain walls hedge air; land ends the sea,

     And sea in turn all lands; but for the All

     Truly is nothing which outside may bound.

     That, too, the sum of things itself may not

     Have power to fix a measure of its own,

     Great nature guards, she who compels the void

     To bound all body, as body all the void,

     Thus rendering by these alternates the whole

     An infinite; or else the one or other,

     Being unbounded by the other, spreads,

     Even by its single nature, ne'ertheless

     Immeasurably forth....

     Nor sea, nor earth, nor shining vaults of sky,

     Nor breed of mortals, nor holy limbs of gods

     Could keep their place least portion of an hour:

     For, driven apart from out its meetings fit,

     The stock of stuff, dissolved, would be borne

     Along the illimitable inane afar,

     Or rather, in fact, would ne'er have once combined

     And given a birth to aught, since, scattered wide,

     It could not be united. For of truth

     Neither by counsel did the primal germs

     'Stablish themselves, as by keen act of mind,

     Each in its proper place; nor did they make,

     Forsooth, a compact how each germ should move;

     But since, being many and changed in many modes

     Along the All, they're driven abroad and vexed

     By blow on blow, even from all time of old,

     They thus at last, after attempting all

     The kinds of motion and conjoining, come

     Into those great arrangements out of which

     This sum of things established is create,

     By which, moreover, through the mighty years,

     It is preserved, when once it has been thrown

     Into the proper motions, bringing to pass

     That ever the streams refresh the greedy main

     With river-waves abounding, and that earth,

     Lapped in warm exhalations of the sun,

     Renews her broods, and that the lusty race

     Of breathing creatures bears and blooms, and that

     The gliding fires of ether are alive—

     What still the primal germs nowise could do,

     Unless from out the infinite of space

     Could come supply of matter, whence in season

     They're wont whatever losses to repair.

     For as the nature of breathing creatures wastes,

     Losing its body, when deprived of food:

     So all things have to be dissolved as soon

     As matter, diverted by what means soever

     From off its course, shall fail to be on hand.

     Nor can the blows from outward still conserve,

     On every side, whatever sum of a world

     Has been united in a whole. They can

     Indeed, by frequent beating, check a part,

     Till others arriving may fulfil the sum;

     But meanwhile often are they forced to spring

     Rebounding back, and, as they spring, to yield,

     Unto those elements whence a world derives,

     Room and a time for flight, permitting them

     To be from off the massy union borne

     Free and afar. Wherefore, again, again:

     Needs must there come a many for supply;

     And also, that the blows themselves shall be

     Unfailing ever, must there ever be

     An infinite force of matter all sides round.

     And in these problems, shrink, my Memmius, far

     From yielding faith to that notorious talk:

     That all things inward to the centre press;

     And thus the nature of the world stands firm

     With never blows from outward, nor can be

     Nowhere disparted—since all height and depth

     Have always inward to the centre pressed

     (If thou art ready to believe that aught

     Itself can rest upon itself ); or that

     The ponderous bodies which be under earth

     Do all press upwards and do come to rest

     Upon the earth, in some way upside down,

     Like to those images of things we see

     At present through the waters. They contend,

     With like procedure, that all breathing things

     Head downward roam about, and yet cannot

     Tumble from earth to realms of sky below,

     No more than these our bodies wing away

     Spontaneously to vaults of sky above;

     That, when those creatures look upon the sun,

     We view the constellations of the night;

     And that with us the seasons of the sky

     They thus alternately divide, and thus

     Do pass the night coequal to our days,

     But a vain error has given these dreams to fools,

     Which they've embraced with reasoning perverse

     For centre none can be where world is still

     Boundless, nor yet, if now a centre were,

     Could aught take there a fixed position more

     Than for some other cause 'tmight be dislodged.

     For all of room and space we call the void

     Must both through centre and non-centre yield

     Alike to weights where'er their motions tend.

     Nor is there any place, where, when they've come,

     Bodies can be at standstill in the void,

     Deprived of force of weight; nor yet may void

     Furnish support to any,—nay, it must,

     True to its bent of nature, still give way.

     Thus in such manner not at all can things

     Be held in union, as if overcome

     By craving for a centre.

                                  But besides,

     Seeing they feign that not all bodies press

     To centre inward, rather only those

     Of earth and water (liquid of the sea,

     And the big billows from the mountain slopes,

     And whatsoever are encased, as 'twere,

     In earthen body), contrariwise, they teach

     How the thin air, and with it the hot fire,

     Is borne asunder from the centre, and how,

     For this all ether quivers with bright stars,

     And the sun's flame along the blue is fed

     (Because the heat, from out the centre flying,

     All gathers there), and how, again, the boughs

     Upon the tree-tops could not sprout their leaves,

     Unless, little by little, from out the earth

     For each were nutriment…

     Lest, after the manner of the winged flames,

     The ramparts of the world should flee away,

     Dissolved amain throughout the mighty void,

     And lest all else should likewise follow after,

     Aye, lest the thundering vaults of heaven should burst

     And splinter upward, and the earth forthwith

     Withdraw from under our feet, and all its bulk,

     Among its mingled wrecks and those of heaven,

     With slipping asunder of the primal seeds,

     Should pass, along the immeasurable inane,

     Away forever, and, that instant, naught

     Of wrack and remnant would be left, beside

     The desolate space, and germs invisible.

     For on whatever side thou deemest first

     The primal bodies lacking, lo, that side

     Will be for things the very door of death:

     Wherethrough the throng of matter all will dash,

     Out and abroad.

                    These points, if thou wilt ponder,

     Then, with but paltry trouble led along…

     For one thing after other will grow clear,

     Nor shall the blind night rob thee of the road,

     To hinder thy gaze on nature's Farthest-forth.

     Thus things for things shall kindle torches new.